


Over the clouds

by romasheg



Category: Original Work
Genre: Air Force, Airplanes, F/M, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-05
Updated: 2018-02-05
Packaged: 2019-03-14 10:05:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13587789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/romasheg/pseuds/romasheg
Summary: Military fiction. A bit of love story. Jets, guns, missiles etc. included.





	1. Up to the skies

**Author's Note:**

> This is a work of military fiction so it may include some specific terminology. I will do my best to explain most of the abbreviations at the end of each chapter. In case you think there are more things that need explanation - feel free to write about it down in the comments.

**CHAPTER 1**

Final cup of coffee. It seems like I will not have a proper rest in the nearest forty or so hours. Pretty long mission lies ahead. Departure from a small town in the center of underdeveloped European country. Then flight over several different states and joining with attack group consisting of multinational fighter squadrons. At least, briefing says so…

‘In a couple of days look up to the skies. I will wave a hand to you.’ – I dropped this message to someone important to me. Never thought I would meet this person in such a way. Won’t be able to contact her in a while. No connection up there, thirteen kilometers above the ground, after all.

I adjust my flight suit to fit at least a little better. Made of so bulky and harsh cloth it restrains my movements quite a lot. Not that I really need a lot of freedom in my motion, but still feels uncomfortable.

‘Hey, Jack! Ready?’ – my tech Sergo asks in his usual carefree manner. This guy always makes my tension before takeoff go away.  
‘Yeah… In a way…’ – I reply with my thoughts still far away. In a distant country we are heading to.

'Do this right. For her…’ – He drops a glaze onto a photo sticked to one of the mirrors on the canopy frame. Girl with a faint smile and giant deep dark-brown eyes looks onto me from that piece of paper. Never saw her in person, though I’m sure she is even more beautiful in real life. My lips stretch a bit. Not that anyone would notice that.

‘Yeah. I will!’ – I yell through the noise of the APU [1] starting to spin left engine. Sergo salutes and takes the ladder off the side of my aircraft. I close the canopy and that deafening noise becomes bearable. ‘Tower, this is Arrow-14, requesting taxi’.

After acquiring permission, I rev engines up a touch and my thirty-five-ton flying machine begins to roll lazily over concrete plates with wide gaps between them.

‘Tower, this is Arrow-14, on hold, requesting permission to take-off.’

‘Arrow-14, this is tower, permission granted. Proceed with take-off. Meet with your birds.’

Without a word more I engage engines on full military and release the wheel brakes. My vision is shaking. God, I hate runways in my country. Shaking suddenly stops. I’m airborne. With upbeat sound gear goes up.

‘Tower, this is Arrow-14, leaving your airspace’

‘Arrow-14, this is tower, control AWACS [2]. Meet with your birds. Good luck there. We expect you back in three days’ – last words I hear from my hometown airfield.

‘Thanks. See you soon’ – I change the frequency on a radio and engage autopilot. A long flight lies ahead. I have enough water and sandwiches on me. Sadly, it’s not really possible to sleep when you’re restrained from all around and packed into a small cockpit with all that ‘clocks’, outdated 20 years ago surrounding you. At least I hope my wings won’t detach from airframe just about midair.

I take a pleasant look at what surrounds me. Small villages float underneath my canards. Fields. Many fields. Those yellow ones are certainly of sunflower. Light gold color is a wheat. They say our country’s main wealth is the soil. Don’t know, really. Ecology is long messed up. This thoughts after all make me take a nap.

‘Arrow-14, Arrow-14, this is Arrow-leader. Come online.’ – really loud voice is dragging me out of my dreams. It is Maxim. Our squadron leader. We definitely could not be considered close friends, but I respect him much. A man’s been through many conflicts. He went through middle-east, Caucasus and even Balkans. There aren’t many people as experienced as him in Air Force currently. I even feel bad for him, because he, despite being such a wonderful pilot, is forced to fly such a junk. He will never admit it though. However, I saw his barely noticeable tears of happiness when he was given a chance to fly modern fighter of some northern country.

‘Arrow-leader, this is Arrow-14. Was taking a nap.’

‘Arrow-14, we see you on screens. We invite you to the left side of formation.’ – he said with a slight giggle in the end of phrase.

‘Roger that. Coming in’ – saying that I disengage autopilot and make corrections. I remember first time I was in a fighter. Oh, I was so sick even of the slightest maneuvers. I got used to it pretty quickly, though.

‘Arrow-leader to all Arrows, prepare for the first refuel. KC’s in range. Approaching in the groups of 3, division by your squad numbers.’

Many voices came in at once going ‘Roger’. I’m heading for the last of KC’s with Arrow units 13 and 15. We are the last inline.

Air to air refuel is a very tricky process. First you have to precisely match your speed with a tanker, then you need to hold same altitude. You can’t engage autopilot in the process as you need to make instant correction not to break link with a fuel line. We will have to make around 8 refuels over the course of operation. Good practice for novice pilots. Hope they won’t hold us for too long though. As the drogue [3] gets closer I correct attitude of the aircraft and mating completes. I’ve done this countless times by now so in good weather this whole action is not really complicated to me. After refuel we exchange a quick goodbye and wing-bank salute with tanker teams and proceed back into our formation. We are utilizing V-like scheme which makes us look like a pack of cranes from the ground. Not that it’s really possible to see us from down there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] APU - Auxilary Power Unit. Tiny engine on the aircraft that provides electricty while main engines are off and helps start them.  
> [2] AWACS – Airborne Warning and Control System – aircraft which main purpose is to perform long-range radiolocation. Much like ground-based radars but in the air. Distinguishable by large antenna dish-like fairings on top of the airframe.  
> [3] Drogue – a part of an aerial refuel system. Basically a cone at the end of fuel hose stretching from the tanker aircraft.


	2. The dream

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bulk realeasing second chapter

**CHAPTER 2**

            ‘Look into my eyes. You told me you love them so many times. Look into them. For the last time.’ – she speaks to me so softly. I want to touch her. Even slightly. My body won’t move. I wonder why are her eyes not that dark. Was that all just the effect of photo? No. I can’t ask. My lips are moving. The air travels through my throat but no single sound is made. Should I even care what’s wrong with me? Those eyes, they are getting brighter and brighter. Her hair with each second becomes of a lighter shade. Her skin every next moment evidently emits more and more light. Is she a shine herself? Perhaps a god. This perfect skin. Dark filaments start to cover it, breaking all the sense of perfection. She is cracking like an eggshell. Her hair is gone. Not really gone but turned into fire. She vanishes a moment later. My eyes can’t bare that light so I try to shut them tight.

         ‘Aaahhh!’ – as I open my eyes the next moment I find myself securely strapped to a seat. Everything’s just like it was before. Night skies around me and barely noticeable noise of the engines return me back into reality.  
         ‘What the fuck was that!?’ – I yell at nowhere in particular.  
         ‘Arrow-14, this is Arrow-8, report the situation immediately’ – loud voice with a mixture of a white noise came right through my ears. Yeah, it seems I forgot to turn off the radio.  
         ‘All Arrows, this is Arrow-14, nothing’s out of order. Had a bad dream, it seems’ – I try to sound as convincing as possible but just for the sake of it I double check my radar.  
         ‘Roger. Keep yourself quiet next time. We all had instantly engaged ECM[1] already’  
         ‘Sorry guys’ – I mumble the excuse. As if I don’t know it myself. Of course this was not intentional.  
         I wonder did this dream mean something? I think not, it looked too surreal, however I felt a cold running up my spine. As I unpack my sandwich I look around the skies. It seems that the weather got a bit worse down there on the ground. We are flying over some thick layer of clouds. At least I hope that on our arrival there won’t be any heavy winds.

From my early childhood I was obsessed with the skies. The dream of roaming over the clouds always warmed my heart but I never got a chance. For someone from a poor family it’s not really possible to get a private pilot’s license. The only way I could fly was to join the Air Force. I tried several times but they always have turned my application down. I had already forgotten about my dream, but one day everything’s changed. There came a violent revolution followed by a civil war. Then came the reformation of the whole military system. New government was sure that a powerful army is needed and they were smart enough to decide that the core of a new armed forces should be aerial warfare. So then the massive recruitment campaign began. And this was the chance I couldn’t give up on. Never have I thought, though, that sometime in the future I would be sent on a mission as a part of expeditionary forces to a country more than eight thousand kilometers away from my homeland. My parent’s, however, didn’t like that idea as much as I did. Speaking of my parents, they always wanted to see me going to the office wearing the same snow-white shirt every day. That kind of nine-till-five workplace. Peaceful life, with nothing happening. I didn’t hate that idea really, to be honest. Stability is always good. But a boy with a paper plane in me just refused to give up.

I quickly gaze around my instruments. My sight just skims over a girl’s photo. I smile her back, though she definitely can’t see this right now. My eyes stop at the ticking clock.  
         ‘Arrow-leader, this is Arrow-14, is my clock bad or were we supposed to meet Boar squadron by now already?’  
         ‘Arrow-14, this is Arrow-leader, Boars are having troubles over the weather, our contact is off by approximately an hour’ – my headphones mumbled with Max’s voice.  
         ‘Acknowledged, over’ – I speak back and turn transmission off. It seems we will have another refuel before we meet with our eastern brothers in arms. Just as I thought so, my radar screen starts to fill with dots, each representing a tanker.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] ECM (Electronic Countermeasures) – a set of active means of defense against detection by enemy radars.


End file.
